"Of course not, you're my friend!"

"In the show Star Trek: The Next Generation, the android crewmate named Data has a brother named Lore. We consider that since Data is a protagonist, and Lore is an antagonist in this episode, that Data is Good and Lore is Bad."

"One, I can't imagine two characters like that to be treated as friends by anyone. In all probability, Lore is evil and Data doesn't care at all, if he is. The second thing is, if you are not one or the other, you have an identity crisis.

Why did the crew think Lore was an enemy? Is the crew right in thinking of him that way?

You can certainly read into the character of Lore as evil and there being little chance of him being a friend to Data. One could say that it is the reason Data is so aloof and distant.

The second thing that jumps out at me is the assumption that Data must be one way and Lore must be another. But Lore gets the better end of the deal in the episode. When he gets to the bottom of his soul, he is not evil at all, and yet is still a more human-like entity than Data.

This is an excellent discussion about a very important subject. How we define and perceive good and evil and even love and hate is a fascinating topic.

I really like both Data and Lore. I don't always agree with Data (like most of the non-human-like-but-more-human-like characters in Star Trek) and I love Lore. But I'll just add that my feelings aren't the same as most of the crew in the episode. I think of both Data and Lore as good and a lot of the crew see one or the other as evil. I'll add that I think Lore is less of a good person than Data (and not by much) and I think that he's capable of doing more evil (at least with an excuse from being a machine).

To me, evil isn't defined as "unjust," but rather, as "not good." So Lore, I think is definitely not good. If we say "not unjust," then we have to define "unjust." Since we're dealing with a machine, I think we'd have to say that it is "not unjust" to enslave and torture people if it achieves a greater result than the amount of pain inflicted.

So I can see how most people would see Data as evil. But if you see Lore as not good, then wouldn't he need to be bad in order to be evil? I mean, if you're a good person, wouldn't you be good? If a person who is bad is good, then what happens to goodness?

So when you talk about "good" and "evil," you can't separate the concept of good from the concept of "unjust." Unjustness is an integral part of being evil.

But you know, if we're just dealing with humans, I think that most people wouldn't consider Lore to be evil or anything else. As a robot, he's more the "artificial" than human and seems less "evil" to them than the humans who created him.

I can't explain it and I can't figure it out.

I agree with all of this!

In order for someone to be defined as good or evil, we need to define "good." I've always said that "good" is the lack of evil. So if someone is not evil, then he is good."